by E. L. Todd
I tried to ignore it.
This moment would pass and become a distant memory in our lives. My mother’s reappearance had shaken me, but Silke and Abby righted me once more. It was difficult to explain my emotions because they didn’t make any sense, even to me. But I felt like I went back in time to the darkest period of my life.
Fortunately, Silke brought the sun.
She didn’t ask me about it because she knew it would make it worse. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t watching me like a hawk. Did she think I would snap in two? Did she think I would go on a rampage? What did she think, exactly?
“You look very handsome today.” Silke spotted me from the kitchen. She wore a maroon dress with a gold necklace. She had a Starbucks in her hand and mine was sitting on the counter.
“Thanks. You do too.” I gave her a quick kiss then shouldered my bag.
She adjusted my tie like she did every morning then turned to the kitchen table. “Come on, Abby. Time for school.”
Abby pushed her plate away and grabbed her backpack.
Silke dropped her off at school because it was on her way to work. “I asked my parents to watch her tonight so we could go out and have some fun.”
“That sounds like a good idea.” I forced a smile.
Silke caught onto my sadness because her eyes fell in disappointment. But she didn’t comment on it. “We need to do some shots or something.”
I chuckled. “We’re excellent parents.”
She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a deep kiss. “I’ll see you later. Love you.”
“Love you too.” I squeezed her hip before I released her.
“Come on, sweetheart.” Silke grabbed Abby’s hand and pulled her toward the front door.
“Bye, Daddy.” Abby waved as her backpack bounced up and down on her back.
I smiled and held up my coffee cup. “Bye, sweetheart.”
***
My workday always seem to speed by. There was so much to do but not enough hours in the day. Just when I got through one stack of paperwork, I had something else to address. And I was always being pulled away from my desk because workers needed help or had questions.
By the end of the day I was looking forward to going home. My family was waiting for me, and Silke and I would do something fun for the evening. It would be a good distraction from the pain in my heart.
It shouldn’t bother me this much. It shouldn’t wear me down like a rusty pipe. Nothing had changed. I was fine before my mother made her appearance and I should be fine now.
But I wasn’t.
I locked up the shop and closed the garage doors before I threw my bag over my shoulder and headed home. One hand was in my pocket and I didn’t pay attention to anything that was around me. My eyes kept moving to the cracks in the sidewalks, and my mind kept traveling to foreign places. The only time I looked up was to cross the street.
I reached my street and my legs worked a little harder to get me there faster. I was almost to the finish line, my safe place.
“Arsen?”
I stopped in my tracks when I heard her voice. The coarse sound of her voice was exactly the same as it used to be. Even though it was just in my head, I could smell cigarette smoke.
My house was just on my right and I stood at the steps leading to the front door. The protective side of me came out, and I turned around with a look of menace on my face. “You can pester me all you want but stay away from my family.”
She looked smaller than she ever had. Her arms were practically skin and bone. The wrinkles marking her skin made it sag and hang loosely from her sides. Her eyes weren’t as blue as they used to be. A haze had permanently covered them, like fog pressed against a window on Christmas morning. “I…I just want to talk to you.”
“Well, you know where I work.”
Her hands connected in front of her waist. “I knew you wouldn’t see me.”
“Then you shouldn’t be following me now.” Somehow I found the strength to face her without fear. I didn’t let my pain flood across my face. I hid everything from her, and I wasn’t sure how I managed it.
“I just…” She stared at the ground as she tried to find the right words. “I bombarded you last time I came to your office. I thought if I gave you some space—”
“I would hug you and call you Mom?” The venom in my voice was more poisonous than a snake’s.
“I thought we could talk…and I could apologize again.”
“Your apologies mean nothing to me,” I snapped. “It doesn’t change what happened. I’m perfectly fine now. In fact, I’m better than I’ve ever been in my life. You’re just being selfish. You want something and you have nowhere else to go. You aren’t getting a dime from me.”
“I don’t want anything.” She held my gaze as she said it. “Truly…”
I struggled not to roll my eyes. “Why should I believe you? All you’ve ever done is made me miserable.”
“I didn’t mean to…”
It was one thing for her to come to my shop but a completely different matter to follow me here. It made me hate her more, somehow. “Go away and don’t bother me again.” I turned back to the door.
“Arsen…”
I don’t know why I did it, but I turned around.
Her eyes watered. “You’re my son…”
I’d never heard her say those words before. I’d never heard her claim me as something that was a part of her. All I’d ever felt like was a nuisance because one of her clients knocked her up and left her high and dry. She resented me every day of my pathetic life.
“You have a daughter, don’t you?”
I pressed my lips tightly together.
“What if you’d done something terrible to her? What if it was unforgiveable? But you really regretted what you did and just wanted to know her? Wouldn’t you do anything for a second chance?” Her eyes were still moist. “Arsen, please take pity on me. I’m not misleading you. I’m not tricking you. I just want to know about your life.”
The stupid man inside me wanted to believe her. I was an idealistic idiot sometimes and hoped for a fairytale ending. But then I realized how impossible that was. “You waited too long.”
She bowed her head in shame.
“If you came when I needed you, maybe things would have been different. But now you’re coming to me because you need something. And I’m not stupid enough to fall for it.”
She fidgeted in place like my look was burning her.
Silke opened the front door and stepped out. She obviously heard our conversation from inside the house and wanted to know what was going on. The moment she laid eyes on my mother she knew what was transpiring.
My mother turned to her, and her eyes took her in. “She’s beautiful, Arsen.”
Just letting her look at Silke pissed me off. “Go away.”
Abby ran out the door. “Daddy’s home!” She raised her arms in the air with an excited look on her face.
The beast inside me came out. “Silke, put her inside. Now.” There was no way in hell I was letting Abby near the woman who tortured me for so long. I didn’t want my daughter to even look at her. Just being in the same city was too close for my taste.
My mother looked at Abby, and her lip quivered slightly.
“Abby, come on.” Silke grabbed her and dragged her inside.
“Who’s Daddy talking to?” Abby asked.
“Come on.” Silke shut the door when they were in the house.
I remained in my place and didn’t walk inside.
My mother stared at the house like she hoped they would come outside again.
“Don’t come here again.” If I could break her legs so she wouldn’t be able to come back I would. “Now go.”
She remained still. “It makes me very happy to know you’ve made such a beautiful life for yourself. Your daughter—”
“Don’t.” I held up my hand and stepped closer to her.
She flinched at my quick movement.
She wasn’t stupid enough to say anything else.
“This is my family, not yours. You had me but you didn’t want me. Well, someone else does now. You missed your chance and I couldn’t care less about you. You could die and I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”
Her eyes watered again and she stepped back like she’d been slapped.
“Stay out of my life. I mean it.”
She continued to back away.
“You will never get anything out of me. You may as well save your time and look elsewhere.” I turned around and headed back to my house. “Come near my family again and I’ll call the cops. Don’t test me.” I gave her a final glare before I walked into my house and slammed the door.
***
Silke sat across from me in the booth. She looked very pretty in her teal dress and curled hair. Diamond earrings were in her lobes, and her beautiful legs looked gorgeous in her heels.
But I couldn’t appreciate it at the moment.
Silke and I hadn’t talked about my mother but now I knew it was inevitable. She knew it, and I knew it.
I sipped my scotch then swirled the ice cubes around. It was hard for me to look at her because I would see a look of pity reflected back at me.
“Arsen.” Her voice came out quiet, at the same pitch as it would if we were in bed together.
I kept my gaze directed out the window. “Yes?”
Her hand reached across the table then rested on mine. Her palms were so much smaller than mine. But they contained a warmth that my touch couldn’t recreate. “Everything will be alright.”
“She came to my house.” My gaze moved to her face. “Where my family lives. No, everything will not be alright, Silke.”
She held my gaze without blinking.
“I hate dealing with her myself. I hate looking at her and hearing that god-awful voice. Her lungs are full of smoke even if she doesn’t have a cigarette in her hand. Every time I look into her eyes I remember the last time I saw her as she dropped me off like a donation to The Salvation Army. I will never subject my family to that, especially my innocent daughter. No, everything is not alright.”
Silke’s fingers moved across my knuckles. “She doesn’t seem dangerous.”
“Physically, no. But the worst kind of abuse is psychological. I can heal from a broken arm or leg, but a broken soul is something that can never be repaired. There’s no medicine to cure it. It doesn’t matter what I do or how much my life has changed. My heart will always be tainted by my past. I can’t let the same thing happen to Abby. I’d never forgive myself if I did.”
“But you are cured, Arsen.”
“Does it look like it?” I shouldn’t snap at her or treat her like this but I was so pissed off I couldn’t control it. “I’ll always be that little boy dropped off by the side of the road, unwanted and unloved.”
“No, you won’t.” She didn’t falter at my words. “I want to love you for the rest of my life. And so do a lot of other people. You have nothing in common with your past. You’re a completely different person now. It’s easy to fall back into that when the past haunts you. But don’t let it consume you.”
“I just want her to leave me alone.”
“She will eventually.”
“And I don’t want her near you.”
“I can handle her.” Silke had a strong look in her eyes. She’d always been feisty and fearless. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I don’t want her near Abby.”
“That makes two of us.”
At least we agreed upon that. “I want to give her whatever she wants just to leave me alone. And I would do it if I didn’t fear she would come back for more.”
“Maybe she really doesn’t want anything.”
My eyes narrowed on her face.
“Maybe she really does want a relationship with you.”
Silke was the last person I expected to say something like this. “Or maybe she’s tricking me into believing her so I’ll give her whatever she wants.”
“That could be true too.”
I turned my gaze out the window. “She’s evil, Silke. There’s no way she could give me away twenty years ago then want a relationship with me now. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“People change.”
“No, they don’t,” I said bitterly.
Silke gave me a knowing look. “You did.”
My eyes moved back to her face.
“You made a mistake and you righted it. And your intentions were completely honorable.”
Anger exploded inside me. “Don’t compare me to her.”
“I’m not.” She raised her hand in a gesture of peace. “I’m not, Arsen.”
“Because I would never drop off Abby like that, even when I was a piece of shit. And I only left Abby because I wasn’t fit to be a parent. She was better off without me in her life.”
“And you don’t think your mother thought the same thing?”
My jaw clenched in irritation.
“If she really didn’t want a kid, she would have had an abortion.”
“She probably couldn’t afford it,” I said bitterly.
“Arsen, we both know she made the right decision. Would you be here now if she hadn’t?”
“I don’t know where I would be,” I said quietly. “But I know I would be with you.”
Her eyes softened.
“It shouldn’t have taken twenty years for her to come back for me. It shouldn’t have taken twenty years for her to clean up her act to get me back. Let’s not turn this into a fucking fairytale and act like her request is genuine. It’s not.”
“It’s probably not,” she admitted. “But there is a possibility she’s being sincere.”
I loved Silke very much but right now I hated her. “Why are you taking her side? You’re supposed to support me.”
“And I’m supposed to be honest with you and say things you don’t want to hear. It’s too soon to tell what she really wants, and she probably does need money or somewhere to live. You’re more than likely right. But I don’t want you to rule out the possibility that she could really mean everything she says. You deserved a second chance with Abby. And if she’s sincere, she deserves one too.”
“She deserves one?” This was dangerous territory. “You have no idea what that woman has done to me. You have no idea that she stood by and let her fuck buddies do whatever they wanted to me. You don’t know—”
“Enough.” She silenced me with a look. “I don’t want to know, Arsen. If you tell me…” She took a deep breath like she was about to cry. “I’ll never recover from that. Please don’t.”
I took a long drink.
“You have every right to hate her. And if you don’t want her in your life, that’s your decision. But try to look at the situation objectively. Maybe if you sat down with her for a couple of hours and just talked to her, she would leave you alone.”
“Why do I have to do anything?” I snapped. “She dropped me off when she didn’t want me, so why do I have to talk to her when I don’t feel like it? This goes both ways.”
Silke pulled her hand away.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” It made me into a very bitter and angry person.
Her voice came out as a whisper. “I’m on your side, Arsen. I’m always on your side.”
I stared at my glass and watched the remaining ice cubes melt. “I was doing so well before she came back…I was happy.”
“I know.”
“And now every time I sleep I have nightmares about my childhood. Every time I’m alone all I think about was how every teacher I ever had hated me and saw me as a waste of time because I was a foster kid. Things I’ve repressed and blocked out have come rushing back to the surface…I don’t like it.”
Silke nodded in understanding. “You’ve never had any closure—only a distraction.”
She was my distraction. “When you came into my life, it wa
s the first time I ever felt loved—really loved. You stood beside me even when I was a lost cause. All the other girls were attracted to me because I was dark and dangerous. But you were attracted to the tiny light inside my heart that was about to go out. And then your family…has loved me like their own. You’ve been my guardian angel, the reward I got in compensation for all the terrible things that happened to me. When that happened, I finally let go of everything and moved on. I learned how to be happy. I learned how to love someone and let them love me back. Why can’t it just stay that way? Why does this have to happen at all? Why do I need closure? All that’s happened is my old scars have been ripped apart.” I shook my head then lowered my gaze to the table.
She continued to stare at me even if I wouldn’t return the look. “So you can close the door forever. And lock it this time.”
***
Ryan walked into my office, wearing his typical t-shirt with a hole in the sleeve. “What’s up, kiddo?”
I looked up from my computer. “You know, saving the world one car at a time.”
He chuckled then approached the desk. “Let’s get lunch.”
“I’m not hungry. But thanks.” Actually, I hadn’t eaten all day. But I wanted to be alone.
He leaned over and turned off the monitor. “I’m buying. Let’s go.”
I wanted to roll my eyes but I managed not to.
Ryan and I left the office then headed up a few blocks. We walked into a sandwich shop then ordered our food before we sat down.
Ryan immediately went to town on his chips then unwrapped his sandwich. He reminded me of Slade the way he scarfed down his food like his pipe was endless.
I leaned back in the chair and picked at my chips.
“How’s it going?”
Silke told him everything. It was so obvious. “I’ve been better.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” I usually told Ryan everything but I wasn’t myself.
“It’s a complicated situation.” He shrugged. “I don’t blame you for feeling so lost about it.”
I took a bite of my sandwich and looked out the window and watched the people pass. Music played overhead but I blocked it out. Today, the world was silent. But I think it was because I was tuning everything out. “Ryan?”